Port Rowan Wetlands Opens

(This story originally appeared in the Norfolk News on September 30th.  Since then birders have observed a  Hudsonian Godwit, the first recorded at the Wetlands. Below is a shot of the Hudsonian Godwit taken Sunday evening.   

Wetlands Opening

It was fitting, perhaps, that a shorebird joined the crowd that had gathered on Hunter Drive North for the official opening of the Port Rowan Wetlands Sept. 24.

A pectoral sandpiper came in low and glided through the assembled group of dignitaries and interested observers. The bird landed on the newly constructed concrete walkway just metres from the viewing platform.

It was easy to imagine that the sandpiper was paying tribute to the newly restored area.

Birds have been coming to the former Port Rowan Sewage lagoons for years, of course.

Steven Price, president of Bird Studies Canada, whose national headquarters is just to the southwest of the site, recalls driving here from Toronto about 40 years ago.

“We’d tell people to go to the cannery road and turn north,” he said, recalling that the lagoons provided easy access to see swallows, waterfowl and a few shorebirds.

In the last decade, nearly 30 per cent of all the bird species that have been seen in Canada have been observed at this spot. That works out to 190 different species according to E-Bird, an online database of bird observations.

Although the pectoral sandpiper is a species that is doing well, fourteen species at risk have also been observed here, said Price, whose organization was one of the partners involved in establishing the wetlands.

With the completion of the adjacent wastewater treatment plant in 2012, the sewage lagoons were decommissioned.

Funds were then obtained to transform the site into an engineered wetland and restore the balance of the property with prairie grasses and other native shrubs and trees.

Water that once went directly into Dedrick Creek now moves through the wetlands and is naturally filtrated. This natural cleansing works to keep pollution, toxins and nutrients out of the water system.

Mayor Charlie Luke referenced the construction of the new wastewater facility and pointed over his shoulder to the wetlands.

“This is the icing on the cake, here for generations to come,” said the mayor.  

Steering committee members like Peter Bryan-Pulham, senior drainage superintendent for Norfolk County, spoke of how the Drainage Act, often a piece of legislation that is a challenge to navigate, actually worked in favour of getting the project done as the various partners worked together.

“It is a good example of groups who can sometimes be at each other’s throats agreeing on a common objective to restore sewage lagoons that aren’t much use to people when they are closed,” Price declared.

He expects that threatened birds like bobolinks and meadowlarks may be attracted to the enhanced habitat and begin to nest here. Nighthawks and chimney swifts could be drawn to the wetlands area too.

The County hopes that people from around the province and from across Canada will come as well.

They’ll be interested in how they may be able to replicate this unique Norfolk venture that benefits the natural world but will also be of economic value to Norfolk and Port Rowan.